Fox business host: Senate hearing on Boeing 737 Max crashes is “political theater”
Varney calls out family members of victims, holding up their photos “right there in the hearing room”
Published
Citation From the October 29, 2019, edition of Fox Business' Varney & Co.
STUART VARNEY (HOST): Still happening on Capitol Hill, Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing's chief, testifying before the commerce committee of the Senate. This is all about the failures of the 737 Max jet. If you've been following it, look at the stock price of Boeing, bottom right-hand corner. It's started to go up again. Now the stock price is up three bucks. Deirdre Bolton, you've got headlines.
DEIRDRE BOLTON (CORRESPONDENT): Indeed. And this is such an emotional day. I mean, it's a tough day of course for the CEO, an emotional day for the families. This is the one-year anniversary of that Lion Air flight that went down after it took off from Jakarta, Indonesia. But you have [Sen.] Richard Blumenthal just saying moments ago, referring to these planes as “flying coffins.” So you put that language with the families of the victims who are there on this one-year anniversary, anybody who's lost somebody they care about knows how painful those anniversaries are.
VARNEY: That's — I'm sorry, that's over the line.
BOLTON: It's too much [UNINTELLIGIBLE] people in the room.
VARNEY: I'm very sorry, over the line.
BOLTON: And you have, obviously, families there with photos of their loved ones. So, honestly, it's just a heart-wrenching day. Obviously, it's difficult from a corporate perspective. But the CEO, even though he was stripped of his chairman title, he was asked point-blank, will you be standing down? And there are a lot of people who are calling for his head, and so he's saying — well, here are the pictures —
VARNEY: What you're looking at, that's political theater.
BOLTON: Yes.
VARNEY: That's the families of victims, showing the victims — their pictures, right there in the hearing room.
…
VARNEY: OK. Well, it's harsh questioning, and that's the way it should be out there in public. But I do think that “flying coffins” is over the line. Don't think you should do that. Let's get back to money. Check out the big board.